Four Seasons of the Pedibus

I hear you asking me already. What, in the world, is the Pedibus? To English-speaking ears the word summons up a host of associations from brightly painted buses offering in-home pedicures to something vaguely perverted and uncertain. In Switzerland, however, at least in that small sliver of the country which I currently inhabit, the word means simply "foot bus" and denotes a method of conveying the youngest of the country's school children to and from kindergarten. The use of cars and carpooling here is frowned upon from the lowest grades onward. Too much traffic, the thinking goes, creates an unsafe situation for all those trying to reach the school grounds, and the thought of harried parents hastily dropping off children before rushing off to work sends a shiver of fear down any self-respecting Swiss spine. 

No, not for the Swiss are the long lines of overheated minivans filled with renegade snacks and restless siblings which American parents have down to a certain science. Here, to travel to school on foot is to travel holy ground, and the Schulweg as it is officially called, is considered an integral part of a child's early education. Indeed for the Swiss, the path to school constitutes a kind of social classroom in which the children learn to help each other out and solve their disagreements on their own. Beyond that, the nation's youth are learning to navigate village streets and crosswalks all while receiving a hearty dose of fresh air and exercise, in all weather, and in all four seasons of the year.

Which brings me back by a somewhat circuitous route to the matter of the Pedibus.  Children here enter kindergarten at the tender age of four, and even a people as resourceful as the Swiss do not expect society's youngest  members to cross the street by themselves. Hence all first-year kindergarteners are to be accompanied to school and back by an adult. The Swiss being Swiss, they promptly saw the advantage of banding together to coordinate all this to-ing and fro-ing, and so, throughout the village, various Pedibus routes have taken shape. Each neighborhood forms a cluster of children and revolving adult chaperones, and in these modern times, the entire effort is masterfully coordinated via WhatsApp. Before the beginning of the school year, our self-appointed organizer distributed a detailed schedule of which children were to walk with which adults on which days. The agreed-upon route was to start and end at a central meeting point, in this case known simply as "the Alpacas" for reasons that are sadly beyond the scope of this study.

The Pedibus departed sharply at 7:45 am which left the children and their selfless chaperone a good thirty minutes to get the classroom. The walk could be done in half that time, but as a collective the Pedibus is much slower than the sum of its parts. The group always has to cater to the most plodding of its members, of course, but for all the children, there are countless distractions along the way:  rocks to be upturned, blades of grass to be picked, ladybugs to be captured and released, hiding places to be sought out and hidden in. The children deliberately filled their pockets with treasures to take home: snail shells, pebbles, sticks, wild flowers, leaves, the minutia of village life. One day my Leo even brought home the cast-off tail of a slow worm. I jumped about five feet off the floor.

Of course, each season of the year also presented its own distinct distractions. In the late summer, at the launch of the Pedibus, the children were slow and uncertain. Even those who had practiced all summer did not quite have the stamina for such a long walk, while others were shy of the adult chaperones some of whom they barely knew. Still others were shell-shocked at the very prospect of going to kindergarten, much less without their own mothers holding their hands. Those were the ones who managed to cry great gobs of tears for the entire duration of the walk and who arrived at the school house with red cheeks and runny noses.  

In the fall, the Pedibus had to deal with dark mornings made even darker by the famous fog of the region whose impenetrability makes any allusion to cat feet seem impossibly naive.  Schools dutifully distribute all manner of reflective gear to their pupils -- vests, caps, arm bands, what have you -- but the children on those dark November mornings seemed sluggish and disoriented as we made our silent way to school.

The path was more spirited a few weeks later when the first dustings of snow arrived, and snow-ball fights immediately broke out among our ranks. Snow was scraped with mittened hands from every imaginable surface along the way and then cheerfully balled together and hurled at the next closest target. There were tears on these frosty mornings as well as the children objected to getting snow on their faces or snowballs callously dashed from their hands. My own patience as Pedibus driver was perhaps at its nadir during the winter months as I froze underneath multiple layers of clothes and prayed for us to pick up some speed and generate, please God, some body heat.

In the spring the rains came and with them the slugs and snails who were routinely picked up and transplanted to various other spots along the way. At night when I said my prayers, I was always sure to thank God that I was not born a snail along the Pedibus route though I suppose they take their house with them so it's not quite so bad. I am equally thankful, truth be told, that my garden does not lie along the path. Woe is he who plants his flowers along the sidewalk leading from the school house for the fruits of his labors will end up deposited upon the kitchen counters of many a village mother.  

Now the school year has come to an end, and our children, sturdy five-year olds, will soon be entrusted with walking to school on their own. We have taught them about cross walks, about the dangers of strangers, about the importance of sticking together and helping each other get to school safely. In systematic Swiss fashion, we shortened the chaperoned route bit by bit as spring folded into summer, and in the last week of school, our children proudly walked it on their own. My days as Pedibus driver have come to an end, but the lessons learned on the way to school will surely last a life time.